Greens are good for farmers insists Laois Offaly Minster who slams TD's Trump politics

Laois Offaly Green Party Minister Pippa Hackett insisted that Greens are good for rural Ireland in a statement in which she lashed out at a west of Ireland TD for using Trump for votes.

The Geashill-based senator issued a statement after what she describes as Michael Fitzmaurice’s "recent nosedive into an anti-Green culture war".

Minister Hackett describe his approach in her statement as being “straight from the playbook of Trump’s America. Deputy Fitzmaurice is seeking to sow anger and division in rural areas and stir up anti-environment sentiment for his own narrow electoral gain.”

However, he flung back with a comment that her view was jus 'BS'.

She claims that in recent media coverage, the Roscommon Galway TD, contended that damaging policies on farming are being enforced by the Green party in Government, destroying farm holdings across rural Ireland.

Minister Hackett responded in her statement that: “Nothing could be further from the truth.”

She continued: “The Green Party in Government has been good for farmers. We have helped shape a new Common Agricultural Policy that has redistributed subsidies in a way that brings greater fairness to smaller farmers across the country. We have introduced a 60% grant rate for farmers who want to run their farms and homes on solar power. We have helped shape ACRES, the €1.5 billon agri-environmental scheme that will pay 50,000 farmers across the country to produce food in a more sustainable way over the next five years.

“The Green Party has negotiated the largest ever budget for organics and forestry, much of which will flow to farmers and landowners in the very rural areas Michael Fitzmaurice claims to represent. The Greens have ensured that €1.5 billion of carbon tax funds will be ringfenced for farmers this decade,” she said.

She compared the Independent TD to politicians in America. 

“Michael Fitzmaurice seeks to cast the Greens as enemies of the people. His actions are no different to those who peddle division in US politics. He seeks to create anger and resentment based on conjecture and uncertainty, telling the public that the only way to secure their future is to stick with the past and not seek change for the better. It is short-sighted, wrong and dangerous.

"The world is changing, and we must too. It is our job to help farmers do that, and to pay them to do it, so that we can build a more resilient sector that will survive for generations to come. That is the rural Green agenda.

 “Michael Fitzmaurice talks of the Nature Restoration Law as if it was dreamed up by Green Party members in Dublin. This is an EU proposal – and it is coming regardless of who is in Government. If Michael Fitzmaurice is Minister for Agriculture in the next Government, he will be compelled to implement it as EU legislation. That is a fact.

“I don’t want my children to grow up in a country where their politicians angrily denounce policies to tackle climate change, and spout hatred at those trying to help farmers prepare for the future. I will stand on a platform of pro rural Ireland policies, that pay farmers to adapt to the realities of the world we live in.

“I will fight for budgets that put money in farmers’ pockets to prepare them for the demands of consumers in five- and ten-years’ time. I will continue to give hope to farmers that in a world increasingly concerned about climate, biodiversity, air quality and water quality, farmers will play a central role in adapting, and we will reward them financially for doing it. I want a rural Ireland fit for the future, not one stuck in the past,” concluded the statement.

Speaking on radio in Galway Dep Fitzmaurice replied that she "knew it was pure BS."

He asked: "Is it fake news to use a Trump slogan? Is it fake news to say there's a nature restoration law being prepared in Europe that Finland and Sweden have objected to, and that I brought up in the Dáil and that the Minister [Éamon Ryan] said he supports fully?

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"Is it fake news that there's a land use policy, LULUCF, that being put together at the moment and no-one knows what's in it? Is it fake news that, at the moment, young farmers don't know whether they're coming or going?"

Listen to his comments HERE.